- Can you give us a brief journey of Fortune hotels with respect to the hospitality industry in India? (Pros and cons/personal experience)
Fortune Park Hotels has had a kaleidoscopic journey under our visionaries and senior leadership. We were conceptualized in the year 1995. Backed by the powerful lineage of ITC Hotels we entered into the then emerging mid-market segment and became known as a leading first-class full-service hotel chain with a large portfolio of business hotels in early 2000s. A mid-market to upscale hotel chain, with small to medium inventories, focused on a 100% asset light strategy was relatively unknown back then. Gradually, we penetrated the length and breadth of India with our business hotels across key cities and metros of India and then entering into new and lesser known tier 2/ 3 markets, a characteristic we continue to carry with us in our DNA. In the journey years we realized the tremendous potential that leisure destinations offer and as a result today 27 years later, Fortune Hotels is India’s leading chain of first class, full service business and leisure hotels, with 57 signed alliances and over 4300 rooms, across 48 cities in the country.
- What are the reasons for focusing on leisure properties- hills of Fortune?
With domestic tourism opening and the world looking to holiday and work across unique locations, our focus on leisure has grown. Most of our future expansion is around pilgrim and tourist locations. We aim to give our customers value-centric offerings in unique destinations to help them discover new places of interest. While we began as a business hotel chain, the last few years have been about exploring our leisure offerings. We see a green field of opportunity in leisure and pilgrim places. We are simultaneously looking to grow our sub-brands across India, in line with our established brand guidelines and basis the USP of the property.
- What according to you is the movement of mid-segment hotels over the next few years?
Over the years, the mid-market segment has become the largest sub-segment among the branded hotel supply chain in India. The growth of domestic tourism, changing customer preferences, demand for value-centric competitively priced hotel brands and the emergence and growth of business activities in Tier 2 & 3 cities have bolstered their popularity in India in the recent past.
The growing demand from middle-income domestic travelers and international budget travelers, for competitively priced hotels and experiences is going to keep mid-segments relevant and expanding over the next few years.
- How has technology played a role in the hospitality segment in recent times? How is the brand placed in terms of technology?​
India is emerging to be a digitally advanced traveller nation in terms of digital tools being used for planning, booking, and experiencing a journey. Technology and digitalisation have propelled this industry to the next level of development. At Fortune Hotels, we introduced many new approaches to adjust to the ‘New Normal’ and ensure a safe and hygienic hassle-free stay for our guests. Over and above this, most of our communication and offerings in the marketplace were to drive business – some innovative steps that we undertook to ensure guest safety include contactless check-ins, sanitized-sealed rooms, QR codes enabled communication in rooms, digital menus, contact-less payment options and much more. However, all these come with a simple caveat for nothing beats a personal touch and we continue to challenge ourselves in building guest experiences with need based secured touch but high connect.
- Do you think that the hospitality industry is getting back on its feet post-covid-19?
The past two years have been a roller-coaster ride, with circumstances never imagined and a number of unthinkable situations. Aviation and Hospitality sectors have had to bear a set-back but over two-thirds of the decline experienced in FY21 is expected to be reversed in FY22. We expect the number of passengers to reach pre-COVID levels only by the close of FY23 or mid-FY24.
Despite the economic challenges and an underdeveloped medical infrastructure than most progressive nations, our community and people-centric approach, acumen in medical services, and well-laid-out government strategies fought the contingency well.
- What are the expansion plans for the brand?​
We are a proud Indian chain, well established across all parts of the country and with a very strong understanding of the nuances of the various markets. Over the past few months, we have been seeing an increased interest in our brand and are very confident about our India story.
Our current strategy is to open more leisure hotels and expand in tourist locations. We are in advance discussions to close operating contracts in cities of importance like- Goa, Hills of Himachal Pradesh, popular hill stations of Maharashtra, key temple towns of India, and interesting leisure locations in North East to indicate a few.
Our focus on adding business hotels to the portfolio also continues. We expect to announce a few more signings this year in some tier2/3 cities of India in regions like Delhi NCR. The idea is to establish a 50:50 balance of business and leisure mix in our portfolio by 2025.
We are currently aiming to launch three to six 9-11 hotels by the end of this financial year, in locations like Katra, Kufri, Haldwani, Hoshiarpur, Tiruppur and Kalimpong to name a few.
- Any two things you would like to change/ modify from the Indian hospitality industry?
Increase in Team strength: Currently, the Indian industry associations and professionals assess that the hospitality industry is experiencing a growing need for skilled and semi-skilled workers as the business has boomed post the third wave of Covid-19 and operations and working hours have normalised.
Skilled & Trained Staff: Many workers who were laid off during the pandemic have moved to other sectors such as retail and banking, and are now reluctant to come back as there is a feeling that hospitality roles are insecure, not as rewarding, and far too demanding.
For the growth of both young people and the hotel industry, we need to attract young talent in the hotel industry. For this, we need to evolve and make people aware of the opportunities available and train them accordingly.
- What are the smart operational exercises that have helped the industry stay afloat?
While many initiatives have been taken by industry bodies to strengthen the business and hotel operations. It is important that customers are also sensitized about the nuances of the Indian Hospitality industry which in terms of offerings provides more value than most developed/ developing economies of the world to its customers and despite this receives lesser Average Room Rates than hotels in most developed/ developing countries.
